Anterior Insula Regulation and Pain Empathy

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Anterior Insula Activity During Regulation; Empathic Responses After Anterior Insula Regulation
• Interventions: Device: real-time fMRI neurofeedback training running on Turbo Brain voyager (TBV) 3.2 (Brain Innovation, Maastricht, The Netherlands)

• Registration Number: NCT02463981
• Lead Sponsor: University of Electronic Science and Technology of China

Brief Summary

The aim is to test whether rtfMRI-based neurofeedback training on anterior insula impacts pain empathy.

Detailed Description

In the present study, investigators plan to use the real-time fMRI neurofeedback to train healthy subjects to learn volitional control over their own anterior insula (AI) activity. Then the effect of AI regulation will assessed by examining subjects' empathic responses and functional connectivity changes. Subjects were separated into two groups randomly. While the experimental group received specific neurofeedback from their own AI, the control group received sham NF from an unspecific region.

Study Timeline

• Study First Submitted: 2015-05-29
• Study Start: 2015-06
• Study First Submitted QC: 2015-06-04
• Study First Posted: 2015-06-08
• Primary Completion: 2015-07
• Study Completion: 2015-07
• Results First Submitted: 2017-09-20
• Results First Submitted QC: 2017-12-05
• Results First Posted: 2018-01-04
• Status Verified: 2022-02
• Last Update Submitted: 2022-02-08
• Last Update Posted: 2022-02-09

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 37

Inclusion Criteria

• Healthy subjects without past or current psychiatric or neurological disorders

Exclusion Criteria

• history of head injury;
• claustrophobia;
• pregnancy;
• medical or psychiatric illness.

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
neurofeedback training	real-time fMRI neurofeedback training running on Turbo Brain voyager (TBV) 3.2 (Brain Innovation, Maastricht, The Netherlands)	Neurofeedback training group receives neurofeedback from their own anterior insula.
sham control	real-time fMRI neurofeedback training running on Turbo Brain voyager (TBV) 3.2 (Brain Innovation, Maastricht, The Netherlands)	Sham control group receives sham neurofeedback from a large control brain region.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Pain Empathy Rating Scores	three days.	Subjects were required to rate their empathic feeling towards painful pictures on a Likert Scale ranging from 1-9 (1 = not at all and 9 = very painful). The effects of training on the empathy for pain were analyzed comparing the feedback group with the controls group. For each subject differences were calculated between pictures that were preceded by a training compared to a no-training block. Within the context of the present design we expected that training-induced increases in anterior insula activity should lead to higher pain empathy ratings in the training group as compared to the control group.
Neural Activity of Anterior Insula During Neorofeedback Training	three days.	Neural activity was analyzed using standard fMRI analysis procedure that examine neural activity during training of anterior insula regulation. The measures include BOLD signal analysis (reflecting neural activity strengths) as well as functional connectivity analysis (that examine the interaction between different brain regions).